


372pages We Will Get Back: Part 2

by HelluvaRig



Series: 372pages We Will Get Back [2]
Category: 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23206396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelluvaRig/pseuds/HelluvaRig
Summary: The boys are at it again! Mike and Conor take on new challenges as a new year begins for them.. but what lurks around the corner for them seeking revenge?!? Who knows!
Series: 372pages We Will Get Back [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668418
Kudos: 9





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**__** _Under cosmic clamor decayed, hides a path untaken. \- eScape, theme of Omega_

“The”, Moviegique (pronounced “movie-jsheek”) began on his 9700th movie review. He took a sip of his patented Ass-Piss ™ brand cola and stroked his chin with his long slender hands - searching for an idea. Any idea. _Dale M. Courtney, now there’s a man with ideas!_ He muttered to himself.

It was a cold autumn morning, and he had just finished watching the new Willow reboot. He was furious. There were no dragons, the brownies were 10 feet tall, and the Wyr didn’t look a damn thing like Wookies. There was nothing he could do but wail at his computer and type his review furiously. But the words did not come to him. He was alone, without even his thoughts to keep him company.

This was, of course, the state of every writer at this very moment. Millions of people with otherwise great ideas were being siphoned of their words and thoughts and sent who-knows-where. All Alejandro, the cosmic kitten-cat could think was that someone out there was trying to write the Ultimate Book -- something no one should ever be able to do. Yes, there was trouble brewing somewhere deep within the vastness of space. 

Trouble that only a kitten and some guys who do a podcast about bad books could fix.


	2. Kitten Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why are Mike and Conor wandering around a desert? Will the DemonChild ever come up again?! Who knows!

**Chapter 1: Kitten Moon**

A vast desert lay before Michael J Nelson and Conor Lastowka. Conor was thumbing through Moomin pictures on his phone while Mike was checking out a map.

“I don’t think the dildo’s around here.” Mike said, folding the map and giving up.

Conor looked up from a Moomin x Body Inflation crosspost and sighed. “Well, Alejandro may have been wrong. Maybe we’re in the wrong desert.”

Mike looked around and slammed his teeth together which is apparently a thing people do. “I guess so.” 

All of a sudden, they could hear an ice cream truck in the distance. It was coming towards them. Mike and Conor squinted and shielded their eyes from the sun with their hands. It wasn’t Annie’s ice cream, though, thankfully. As the truck came closer to them they realized that it said “Elora’s Iced Creams”.

“Elora.” They both said, shuddering at Claremont’s description of her every five lines in the book.

“That’s me!” A young woman’s pleasant voice rang. “What are you boys doing out here in the desert all by yourselves?”

Mike and Conor couldn’t deceive her.

“Looking for Pappy Pariah’s Promiscuous Penis.” Conor said.

“Looking for a dildo.” Mike said at the same time.

Elora looked thoughtful for a moment, and they watched her fiery red hair swish as she went to the back of the truck for something. She emerged five seconds later with the half-melted dildo in hand.

“Is _this_ what you boys have been after?” She looked it over. “I guess it _could_ have been a useful dildo at one point in time.”

Conor’s eyes lit up like christmas morning. There it was, in all it’s half-melted glory.

“Yes, that’s it!” Mike said, slender hand outstretched to take it from her.

“ _Not!_ ” Elora snapped the dildo back. “So fast!”

Mike looked at her with asperity. “Huh?!”

Elora looked at The Boys with a crooked smile. “I have a proposition for you two.”

“No thanks, I’m driving.” Conor said, making a joke that didn’t land.

“No no, nothing like that.” She explained. “I have a unique issue that I can’t solve myself as I’ve been banished to this ice cream truck by my shitty ex-husband.”

Mike and Conor decided to sidestep that obvious rant. “What’s your issue?” Mike asked, helpful.

Elora eyed them curiously with bright eyes. _Maybe they **could** help me._

**They won’t be able to help you.**

**__** _But, I really need their help._

**It’ll be useless. They probably work for the Deceiver.**

**__** _They haven’t deceived me yet, I’ve no reason to distrust them!_

**Foolish mortal thing.**

**__** _I’m the chosen child or whatever!_

**Whatever, I’m going back to my dungeon hole of darkness and give birth to like twenty more DemonChilds.**

**__** _You and your DemonChilds. Always with your DemonChilds. You know, I’ve have a mind to---_

Elora realized Mike and Conor were staring at her with even _more_ asperity, and stopped talking to her inner demon. “Er--well, that is to say..” She mumbled.

Conor and Mike looked at each other hoping they hadn’t stepped into something they clearly had already.

Composing herself, Elora began again: “As the Timeless Child _or whatever_ I hereby decree you uh.. Help me.”

“Timeless Child?” Mike asked no one.

“We already agreed to help you!” Conor said.

“I hereby decree you to help me find my mother and bring her to me.”

Mike and Conor heard the audible “awww…” from the studio audience.

“Do you know anything about her?” Conor asked.

“I know only her name, good servants of the Realm.” She said with royal dignity. “Her name is Bleriana.”

Mike and Conor were both stunned. Of course they knew Bleriana. But how could they tell her -- daughter!?! -- that she is a cybernetic android boss lady terrorizing evil men around the galaxy? They exchanged a glance before Mike answered. “We, sort of already know her.”

It was Elora’s turn to be stunned. All her life, wandering this desert selling iced creams, always hoping to find her mother but never could -- because she never left the desert or her iced creams truck. And these two boobs knew her?! What luck!

“Will you bring her to me? I want to see her!”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Conor asked before Mike could shut him up.

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Elora blushed and averted her eyes.

“Uh. Why not?” Conor replied to the awkwardness.

“You see, I’m not wearing any pants!” She lifted a leg up and they could see she was at least not wearing any socks or trousers.

“Well, I mean it is the desert.” Mike shrugged. “It’s like a hundred degrees.”

“I know _I_ don’t assume people are wearing pants in trucks. Why don’t you throw some on and join us?”

Elora was elora-ted (get it?). Her hair disappeared in an instant and she came out of the truck wearing some cute khakis and crocs. She also had thrown on a Distiller’s tshirt. Here she was, going on a real life adventure with some guys who were oddly interested in her burnt dildo.

She plopped the dildo in Mike’s hand and charged ahead in a westward direction.

Mike stared at the dildo in disgust and a little bit of awe. “Here it is, Conor. Pappy’s dildo. We can get this back to Alejandro.”

“Yep, one down, several to go!” Conor replied, bagging the dildo in a static bag. He looked out at Elora, now a few hundred yards away in the wrong direction, and called to her while he zipped the bag close. “Hey, Elora! Elora! This way.” He thrust his thumb behind him and she nodded like she understood, jogging back to them.

“You know, guys, we could do something fun with that thing before it goes wherever it’s going.” Elora hinted.

Mike and Conor realized the three of them all had the same idea.

A few minutes later they had their dildo on the ground. The three stood around with wieners on sticks, watching the dildo burn a little bit more.

“I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner,” They sang in eerie monotone unison.

That is what I truly wish to be

Cause if I were a oscar mayer weiner

Everyone would be in love

Oh everyone would be in love

Everyone would be in love with me”

Moments passed.

“We’re going to hell.” Mike said, and they laughed and headed towards the Truck.


	3. Chapters 2 Thru 5

**Chapter 2: Alejandro Fortress**

“I parked the truck right _here,_ Mike, I swear it!” Conor said, scratching his head while staring into the empty space where the truck used to be.

Mike could seemingly make out the cartoon dotted line in the shape of Chad and Dale’s Time Traveling Truck. Chad and Dale, of course, had been left to rot on the torture pole back in Trucking Thru Time on their last adventure. Mike and Conor absconded with the truck shortly after, never to return. 

After a brief respite, Mike and Conor were called on by Santa to help save crimmus from the clutches of Ernest Cline. They defeated him and he evaporated in a poot cloud. Crimmus was saved, and the potential for more bad books by Ernest Cline was thwarted.

Since then, the boys were sent on a mission to collect artifacts from the different books. They were saving Trucking Thru Time for last for obvious reasons, but now they had to wonder where the truck in question actually was.

“Who could have taken it from us?” Conor pondered, scratching his head.

“I don’t know, Conor.” Mike said. “But we sure need to find out!”

Elora honked her ice cream truck’s horn. She had driven slowly behind them while they walked back to the missing truck. “By the way guys did I mention my ice cream truck *also* breeches time and space?”

Conor and Mike looked incredulously at Elora. “No, we did not.” Conor said flatly.

However, they didn’t see the shadowy figure following them in a hot ferrari. 

**Chapter 3: JANDROLEA TROFRESS**

Meanwhile, deep in the ninth space, Alejandro watched them from a silver glittering cage.

“They will save me I am sure of it.” Alejandro whispered quietly to himself.

An evil laugh rang out throughout the otherwise dark room. Alejandro, even with his catlike senses, could not distinguish the billowing figure who made the sound.

“They’ll never find you, let alone _save_ you, little space cat!” Said a leathery, thick-skinned voice.

Alejandro looked back at the boys with their newfound friend. He closed his eyes solemnly. “Hurry, my friends. Find the rest of the artifacts. All the spaces depend on it!”

**Chapter 4: NAJDLOEAR ROSEFTRS**

Clive Backbend was a simple quality assurance engineer. He was mild mannered. He wore his brown hair cropped tight to his head, and perched his glasses askew to his face to put everyone who met him slightly off. Overall, he was a decent guy. A decent guy of course, with a dark secret.

He balanced himself on his chair as he leaned back and stared out the office window. _Another boring day here._ Clive said to himself. Just then, he heard a ping from his computer.

He double clicked -- double clicking being invented by Andrew Kane in the 1840’s -- on his e-mail, or “electronic mail”. It was from someone named AKITTENCAT. No subject line. Clive, having a 819048 IQ, determined that this was junk mail and was about to send it to the trash bin when he realized that _no one_ should have this e-mail address. It was for inter-office personnel only. How did he get an e-mail from someone outside of the office?!

Clive ran a search string in Google for “how e-mail from outside get in” but it returned nothing. _Stupid Google. Thinks it knows everything when it can’t solve even the most mundane tasks! I miss altavista._

Clive gave up on searching for a safe way to open the email and just clicked on it. It was a simple text.

“It is me, Alejandro the Kitten Cat. You are needed to help the best podcasters in the world save all of space and time. If you hear from them, help them any way you can. Also, tell them to please bring me fish, for I, Alejandro the Kitten Cat, am very hungry. And I like the fish.”

Clive was so stunned he almost fell out of his chair. He thrust out his hand and caught his desk just in time. _Phew, safe!_ Clive chuckled to himself remembering that “safe!” is a baseball term.

And just like that, Clive’s day got a little more interesting.

**Chapter 5: DLENAJARO SORTEFSR**

Conor had had enough of Mike eating all the good ice cream.

“Mike!” He finally exclaimed. “Stop eating all the good ice cream!”

Mike sadly put down his copyrighted cartoon mouse with gumball eyes.

“Guys,” Elora called back from the driver’s seat, “We’re approaching something called a Galumpa?”

“Moon People!” Conor and Mike both shouted. They were excited. Moon People was a breath of fresh air after they had finished the slog that was Shadow Moon. 

Just up ahead was the little diner.

“Hey Conor, you hungry?”

“Oh god, I hope you don’t mean am I hungry for _Red Lobster_!”

They arrived at the diner and took their seats. They hadn’t been able to have a decent meal since they dealt with Ernest Cline feeling up a waitress in the last book. As a reflex, Mike checked the back of the diner menu. He let out a sigh. 

It was a sigh of relief.

“Just the kids menu and drink section.” He explained to an on-edge Conor. Conor relaxed now, too. All they had to do now was find the artifact and get the heck out of dodge. 

A young man sat down at the table across from them. He ordered a 2-2-2 and leaned back to unbutton the top button on his purple corduroy pants. 

He heard Conor and Mike chuckle to themselves and figured it was because they saw him _get ready_ for such a delicious meal of a 2-2-2, but he decided to ask them what was so funny anyways. 

“What’s so funny?” The man asked them. 

“Oh, I guess we were laughing out loud.” Conor said, sheepish.

“We just really like their 2-2-2 here.” Mike said.

The young man nodded but gave them a quizzical look.

After both tables had finished their meals, the young man stood up and buttoned his top button again. He looked over at the boys.

“Hey, you two wouldn’t happen to be podcast hosts would you?” he asked.

Mike and Conor looked at each other quickly before affirming that they, in fact, were podcast hosts.

The young man almost peed himself with relief. “Oh, good! I think I’ve found you. You wouldn’t happen to be searching for Alejandro the Kitten Cat, would you?”

Mike and Conor were both shocked. Conor just realized they had left Elora sitting out in her ice cream truck without inviting her in for some actual food. He looked at the ice cream truck out of the corner of his eye and saw she was just handing out ice cream to some kids who came by. She was making a fortune and would probably forgive them.

“We know Alejandro.” Mike responded cautiously. No one had ever approached them for their podcasting. Sure, they saved Crimmus, but that was kept hush hush by Alejandro’s magic and The Govermnent.

The young man did in fact soil himself. Dripping wet with his own pee, he grasped Mike’s hands in his. “Please! Let me help you! I’ve been searching _everywhere_ for you guys! I got this e-mail that told me I need to help the world’s greatest podcasters.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t say _world’s greatest_.” Mike said. He actually did another podcast too and didn’t want to be mean.

“I would!” Conor grasped the man’s hand and shook it firm. Conor was so excited to get such a large following that even made up fictional characters would come up to him in a book’s diner and literally wet themselves with excitement over meeting them.

“And with that, the group of three became four.” A robotic voice grumbled to himself. He twisted in his seat far away from the diner. _Gah, my lugnuts are killing me! Sitting like this for hours sucks. How many 2-2-2’s are they going to EAT!?_


	4. But Seriously, Dan Brown Sucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, next chapter won't have Dan Brown in it. Maybe.

Mike and Conor emerged from Cheral’s diner after several 2-2-2’s and only ten bathroom breaks -- a record. Clive followed close behind them. He was still sort of smelly from the pee despite cleaning himself up a little with those crappy paper napkins. He was still dabbing at his slacked groin when he unceremoniously bumped into Elora’s ice cream truck. He fell backwards, so he was now on the ground.

“Come on guys, hop on in!” Elora said, beckoning them to ride up front with her. “Glad I got the four-seater!”

Several hours passed. The drive was unseasonably longer than when they were in the truck. Mike and Conor missed their truck. They had to find it again.

“I have a quest too, you know guys.” Elora said to the silence.

“Really?” Conor asked her. “What is it?”

“I lost my favorite stuffed animal in Seville last time I was there.” Elora said with asperity.

Mike sighed, realizing they were in for a long, drawn out backstory that didn’t actually matter to the plot.

“You see,” Elora began, “I was buying some Seville oranges when I was attacked by an assassin. I was five, and had just talked to a man who looked mysteriously like Dan Brown but insisted his name was David Becker. He was explaining how the Seville oranges could only be grown in Seville due to the hot, Andalusian sun. I was clinging to my Alf doll when suddenly out of nowhere an assassin clocked him with an entire staircase. I remember thinking to myself it was his own American fault for not using the railings.

Soon after David Becker was dead, the assassin came for me. I started running. I even swapped jackets with some other people and they died, even though I told them explicitly in English _not_ to wear the jacket I had given them.” Elora let out an audible sigh. “Anyways, I dropped my Alf doll in my haste, and I’ve been looking for it ever since.”

“Did you ever try looking in Seville and not a desert outside of Las Vegas?”

Elora thought for a moment. A smile crept wearily over her face. Conor thought he saw a flash of red in her eyes, but when he blinked it was gone. “I think I know where we’re going next, fellas!”

The road to Seville was surprisingly quick and dry and as they pulled into the dirty punk rock club. They saw tons of vespas lined up in front of it just waiting to be bought for a few dollars. Mike, Conor, Elora, and Clive all got out of the ice cream truck. But Elora had to soon get back into the ice cream truck. The Andalusian sun was so hot and warm and beating down on them that thousands began lining up to get her tastie freezes. Clive was sweating or peeing through his thick purple corduroy pants, Conor was stylish as always in his “camping” crocs, and Mike was dressed like a normal human.

“I’ll leave it to you guys!” Elora said, waving them off with fresh 20’s in her hands.

“Excuse me, but I have a really good way of finding out where the Alf doll might be.” Clive sputtered.

Mike and Conor turned to their sweat(?)-soaked fan to listen.

Clive cleared his throat nervously. “I think if we check this out it will lead us somewhere OK maybe.” He thrusted his hand towards them with a sweaty hand. In his hand was a piece of pink paper.

Mike and Conor looked down at what Clive was showing them. On the pink piece of paper was a picture of a flea and a goofy face and the title spread across the page: “Seville Flea Market - Open Today Only for One hour”

“Which hour is it open for?” Mike asked the piece of paper.

Conor swore he saw the flea wink at him. “Mike, look!” He tugged on Mike’s sleeve and pointed enthusiastically in a westerly direction. 

The three boys looked up and saw the exact building that was pictured on their piece of paper. It was the flea market! They all ran over at the same time and started looking around for the Alf doll.

Conor stood staring at a giant pile of Popple stuffed animals. His eyes watered. They were so beautiful. On the very top of the pile was a big pink Popple. He reached his hands up and stretched really high but he couldn’t get it. He stepped forward and try to climb the Popple pile. _Party Popple **will**_ **__**_be mine!_ Conor thought to himself. 

His fingers wiggled in exasperation waiting to touch the soft Poppl-ly flesh of the stuffed animal. But just as he reached ever so close, Party Popple tipped over and fell down to the other side of the Popple mountain into an old lady’s arms. “My grand-daughter wished for this on a shooting star! How much is it?” The old lady asked the stall owner. The merchant pursed his lips and then finally said “Fifty cents and one penny.” 

Conor checked his pockets. He was still clinging to the less-cool Pretty Cool Popple that stopped him from toppling over the Popple pile onto the harsh, Andalusian dirt below. His hands lent themselves to the frown growing on his face. _Forty Nine and a Half Cents_.

Conor looked around to see if Mike was nearby to lend him a few pennies. He suddenly realized he could see every inch of the marketplace from the top of this plushie pile. He saw Mike, lost amongst a crowd of people looking for the bathroom. He saw Clive eating a soft pretzel and listening to their new podcast episode that was released last Friday. Briefly, he reminisced about simpler days. Days he did not spend in the hot Andalusian sun tracking down a lost stuffed animal. 

“I could be in the Vermont Smokys right now!” Conor sighed. 

Just then, something caught his eye.


	5. Chapter 7: FANGZ 4 READIN DIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ao3 makes chapters weird b/c i had multiple chapters or something. It'll be fixed in the PDF when I'm done w/ this book. Anyways, They're still at the flea market.

AN: Yis dis iz teh wh0le chaptr OKAY LOSR PREPZ STAHP FLAMMIN I NED thr3 good revows b4 i post da nex chapter! Btw fangz Sneezy 4 da edits! Do u hab my weepin angle sweater?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX667XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hi My name is Elora Riven Phoe’nix Witcher 3000 and I hav long red hair w/ blak tips on da ends. Im waring goff close: knee hi black boots fishnuts and 2day im rooming wif da gr8 detectiv Sherlock Hams. He haz a roommate 2 tho named James Watson.

“Hey” Sherls said 2 me gothicly.

“Hey” i said flirtily. We started frenching while cooking brekfast. We made cocopuffs but with blood instaed ov milk bcoz we r goffik and vampires.

“WUT DA FUK R U MUTHERFUKERS DOIN” Mrs Hudston scramed.

“Oh mrs Hudson what art thou doingst here” Vampire Holms growled.

“Im here to tell u i hav a case for u grate detecivs! Whrs Jams?” Mrs Hudson gasped.

Suddenly……………………………………………………………………..John James Whatson cmae in da room!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I culd see a tattoo on hims leg and it sed “heart” around a maginfyng glas and i KNEW it ment Sherlock!!!!!!!!

“What da fuq~!!! im gettin out of here!!!” i shooted running from da room.

“Wait, Elana itz not wut u fink!!!!” Vampire sid.

Latr that nite at da MUSE consart Watson had his arm around me all gothic like an then he strted cryng.

“Why r u crying” i asked sexily.

“bcoz u like Vampire Hams” Watson sed.

“u LIAR i dont even think of him dat way” I sed angrily.

Just then I saw sherlick and he was in da corner thinking.

“What r u doin????” i asked gothicly.

“Shut up thou art a dumb stooge” he sed. He wuz so hawt he lookt liek if a horse had sex w/ a kangaroo so i forgave him. “Im in muh mind place”

“he iz serching for clues hear” Willis said. 

“YEAH RITE I BET HE’S SERCHING FOR UR BUTT!!!!” and den I ran home and put on a big MUSE shirt n fell asleep in miy coffins.

Da next day I wuz still mad so I had my cocopuffs in my ownr oom and den I came oustide an saw James and Sherlock!!!!!!!!!”

“U GUYS WHAT DA FUK!!!” I sed.

“O Elora we want3d to say dat we both like u” Willis said flirtily.

“No way ur a fucking PREP look at that ceral!!!! it’s CRUNCH BARRIES!!!!!!” I shooted.

Then Sherlsham came up 2 me n we started making out.

******************************* ~~~~ *******************************

Conor contemplated finding the nearest match and lighting his eyes on fire. He had read some horrible things in his life, but this was just too bad to not be real, right?

“What are you looking at?” Elora asked him.

“Oh uh, nothing.” Conor shoved the papers into his pocket. He couldn’t let Elora know he read her secret fanfic. For some reason.

“OH okay cool I thought you had found my secret fanfic, read it, and are now hiding it in your pocket.” Elora walked back to her ice cream truck and continued selling her iced creams. 

“That was a close one!” Conor thought aloud to himself.

“WHAT’S THAT?” Elora shouted back to Conor through the crowd of people.

“Nothing!! Nothing!!” Conor waved his hands.

Suddenly……. he saw Mike!

“Mike, how did you fare?” Conor asked.

“I found a toppled popple pile, no bathrooms, seven fried dough stands, and one place selling anime pillows. I got five. What about you?”

“I didn’t find anything remotely resembling an Alf doll formerly owned by Ice Cream Queen Elora.”

“That’s strange. Even in the popple pile?” Mike eyed him curiously.

“Nope not even at the top before I fell down, losing my shoes in the process.”

They were silent for a moment.

“We’ll never speak of this again.” They agreed in unison.

Conor started looking around freakishly.

“What is it, Conor?” Mike asked him.

“My… m...y Corgi senses! They’re tingling! There’s a Corg nearby!!”

Mike was well aware of Conor’s Corgi senses. If I were the type of author to do flashbacks, I would write here how Conor was once saved from drowning in a fire explosion when he was a little Conor by a Corgi. But I’m not that kind of author, so, to continue -- 

Mike knew of the story of the time Conor was nearly drowned in a fire explosion when he was like eight or something but was miraculously saved by a Corgi. Ever since then, Conor has had two big super powers: 1. he can convince Mike to do silly podcasts about reading bad books, and 2. can sense when Corgs are nearby. 

Conor ran off in an eastwardly or so direction, Mike close on his tail (get it, because dog?). Clive saw Mike and Conor running around for something so he finished paying for the Alf doll that had “propertie ov elora danan u prep” on a little homemade tag and chased after them. 

Conor stopped short so Mike and Clive both bumped into him. Silently, happily, Conor lifted his finger (the pointy one) and pointed forward. There, standing before them, was an entire herd of Corgis. Corgis from all over the world were gathered here in Seville for the Seville Orange Flea Market and Corgi Show. Clive looked at the flea market poster again and _this_ time moved his thumb. Sure enough, that’s what it said. 

“Well, go ahead conor. We’ll be back in the ice cream truck when you’re done!” Mike said, patting Clive heartily on the back and dragging him towards the truck.

Conor ran gleefully towards the corgis before he was engulfed by like twenty of them.

“Are you sure he’s going to be okay?” Clive said, clutching the Alf doll close to his chest.

“Of course, Clive! Conor does this once every other week or so. You’ll get used to it.” Mike eyed Clive’s pants. “Let’s get you a new pair of pants while we’re here, huh?”

Clive nodded, still grasping the Alf doll in his arms. The Alf doll’s eyes tightened.


	6. Chapter 8: Yes, The Alf Doll is Totally Possessed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE GOIN TO DA MOVIEZZZZ!!!!

“That’s it! that’s my alf doll!” Elora was elated. She ripped the alf doll from Clive’s buttery fingers and squeezed it. Clive thought he heard the doll wheeze as if being squeezed too tightly, but quickly put that thought out of his head.

They all piled into the ice cream truck and toodled away.

“Where to next, fellas?” Elora asked them. Her alf doll was sitting on the dash.

“Well, we got the burning dildo from Bob Honey, we got some seville oranges from Digital Fortress---” Mike began.

“We did?” Conor asked, still stinky from his post-Corg romp.

“ _I_ did.” Mike clarified.

“Ah.” Conor nodded and then went blank, remembering that he had read Elora’s fanfic just one chapter earlier.

“What’s wrong, partner?” Mike asked Conor worriedly.

“It’s nothing. Nothing.” Conor said out loud, but inside he telepathically begged Mike to hear, “I’ll tell you later!”

Mike didn’t hear it because he nor Conor were telepathic. So he continued answering Elora’s question. “We still need artifacts from Moon People, Armada, Ready Player One, Shadow Moon, Eye of Argon, The Mister, 64 Squares, Tek War, Lair of the White Worm, and of course Trucking Thru Time. Though, I’m not sure how we’d get to Trucking thru time without the actual truck.”

“Also didn’t Chad and Dale end up being bad guys in the last book?” Conor asked, wiping his brow.

“Yeah, that too.”

“Wait guys, what about your exploded spaceship from Armada you had in Book One?” Clive piped up.

Mike shook his head solemnly. “No, unfortunately we’ll have to go through all of it.”

“Unless, of course,” Conor said, “We can find the Trucking Through Time truck. I had a bunch of cool stuff in it from our past adventures.”

“Conor we have no idea who would steal that thing. We even had the keys at the time. They must have really wanted that truck.” Mike explained.

Clive saw the Alf doll’s eyes sparkle, and he shuddered.

Elora peered at Clive. “You cold there, Backbender?”

Clive shook his head but pointed a shaking hand at the Alf doll. “It…. it is ali..ve”

Conor, Mike, and Elora all burst out laughing. 

“You’re a real cut-up, Clive, you know that?” Elora finally said after pulling over a moment to stop laughing. 

Suddenly………………… she saw someone in her rear-view mirror. “There’s someone in my rear-view mirror guys.”

Conor and Mike looked at each other, and craned around to see that sure enough there _was_ someone driving an old ugly green Subaru behind them.

“That’s odd.” Mike said.

“Not the oddest thing we’ve seen in the past few years, though.” Conor sassed.

Elora put her blinker on and pulled over again. The green subaru pulled over along with them. It was time.

The group got out of the ice cream truck and stood waiting like they were in some kind of Twilight movie waiting for the driver of the green subaru to get out.

The figure wobbled a few times in his car before opening the door. As they watched, the shadowy figure turned into a Robot with a fashionable feathery hat. He walked towards them stiffly -- almost robotically you could say.

“Winger?” Conor and Mike asked the barely-recognizeable sex bot.

“Yeah yeah, it’s me.” Winger unbuttoned his shirt. Elora and Clive averted their eyes but Conor and Mike were old hat at this and watched with fervent glory as the robot’s somehow muscular frame gleamed in the sunlight. The fax printed out slowly but surely.

“Here. You can take these, too.” Winger handed them a single sheet of faxpaper and some nuts and bolts. 

“What is this?” Clive asked Winger, who was walking back to his Subaru.

Winger waved his hand with nonchalance and drove off.

Mike and Conor read the paper:

**“To whomst it may concernt,**

**This paper formally admits you to one (one) showings of Ready Player One: The Movie. You must still prove your worth when you get there, haha, but good luck! Also, the nuts and bolts are Winger’s genitalia and is also something called an artifact from “Tek War”, the classic book series written by Shatlart. Enjoy!**

**A”**

Mike opened his hand slowly and let the nuts and bolts fall out of his hand onto the dry dirt. Clive was sent to pick them up and put them in the static bag. 

“Well, at least we won’t have to deal with Bleriana. That girl scares me!” Conor said. 

“I guess, but who’s “A”?” Mike asked no one in particular.

“Oh, who cares!” Elora said, stomping back to her truck. “We got a lead to the next artifact, let’s just _go!_ ”

The movie theater was packed with……...nerds! People were cosplaying all sorts of different characters in anticipation of the biggest movie of the century: Ready Player One. Mike and Conor looked around at the various wookies, droids, overwatch characters, and all the video game and tv show characters.

“The best thing about this movie is it’s like seeing ALL my favorite movies, video games, and tv shows --but in one movie!” They overheard someone say with popcorn falling out of their mouth.

“Yeah. And it’s by Steven Spielberg so YOU KNOW it’s going to be great!” another cheered, spilling soda all over while waving his arms around frantically.

“What the hell are these people on?” Mike asked no one, since Conor was already taking his seat. 

“Let’s just get this over with!” Conor said. “Someone here must have the artifact for this movie. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

They watched as the nerds sat in their seats and the lights dimmed. Aside from a few obnoxious costumes that blocked parts of the screen, they were marginally prepared to watch the movie… OR SO THEY THOUGHT!

The screen came on in a blinding fashion. There, they could see a very annoying looking face looking back at them. It was…………………….. Ernest Cline!

“WHAT THE HELL!” Mike and Conor shouted to many “shh’s!” from the crowd.

“Didn’t he die in our xmas special?” Conor whispered.

“Hello, boys and girls. My name is Ernest Cline, and I’m such a great writer that I feared that this movie -- my own movie, would make my next book worse. I purposely didn’t watch the Ready Player One movie until I had a good book-plot down and ready (get it) to go. What you’re seeing is the special Original Author’s cut of the movie.”

Ernest Cline waited for a gasp of shock. There was one, but also a quiet groan from the back.

The movie ended without incident. Mike and Conor looked at each other afterwards and shrugged. They didn’t notice a difference. Others had.

“Oh man THAT WAS SO GREAT AND DIFFERENT!” the guy next to them sputtered.

“What was different?” Mike asked innocently.

The guy glared at him through his batman mask and rolled his eyes. “Obviously,” he began, “there was 37 seconds of extra footage scattered throughout the entire _film.”_ He scoffed angrily and continued, unprompted: “It’s like you didn’t even watch the movie 87 times before coming to see this version. Who even _does_ that? It’s integeral to the story and to know the amazing Ernest Cline’s true vision when they showed four people’s reactions to the news about Wade finding the key rather than a dismal three. Seriously, what the _hell_ was Spielberg THINKING! Hey-- where are you guys going? the extra credits scene comes up in 45 minutes!”

Conor shook his head. “I’m not sitting through credits just to see a teaser for Armada.”

The entire audience turned to glare at Mike and Conor. A boohiss started as a low murmur before escalating into a full popcorn and soda throwing mayhem.

Running out of the theater, Conor turned to Mike and asked, “What the hell did we do?!”

“Conor! You broke the first rule of movie-going! NO SPOILERS!”

“But we need an artifact from the movie! We never found it!” Conor shrieked with fear as the crowd ran out of food-like items and started hurling whatever the closest object was - including signs and chairs.

“Conor, you fool! We have the most important artifact from any Cline work. _BOTTLED NERD RAGE.”_


	7. Chapters 9 10 and 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, it'll all look good in post.

**Chapter 9: Meanwhile**

“You will never get away with this, you fiend!” Alejandro squonked with fire in his cosmic eyes.

A deep laugh rang out in the darkness. “Of course I will get away with it. I’ve thought of everything. I’ve got you in an impenetrable cage so none of your supercosmic powers work outside of it. And the only one that will work inside of the cage is looking down at the world I will soon destroy.” The disembodied voice let out another laugh.

Alejandro considered this. He licked his paw as he contemplated his situation. The boys will be able to get the artifacts especially with the help of Clive, he knew, but there was also a disturbance in the fabric of time and space that was not accounted for. _Not even by this evil man who has trapped me here._ Alejandro had nothing to do now but watch and have hope. 

**Chapter 10: Yea I Spell It Valentimes**

Elora’s Iced cream truck hovered above the 64-Squares building. It was the day before the building got blown to rubbish, and Conor and Mike were wearing fuzzy cat costumes and parachutes. 

“Conor, I don’t know about this! I’ve never skydived before!” Mike grimaced at the building below.

“Mike, somewhere in this vast, texas-sized skyscraper is the 64-Squares artifact. We _have_ to find it!” Conor put up his cat hood and jumped out of the plane.

Mike put his cat hood on and did the same. 

Clive peeked out the window of Elora’s iced cream truck and watched them land semi-gracefully onto the top of the building.

Mike and Conor stood staring at each other for what seemed like a moment.

“Are we…?” Conor asked slowly.

“WE ARE CAT BURGLAR TERRORISTS!!!” Mike exclaimed, holding the button that would surely set off the bomb that was meant to turn the entire sixty four square building into rubbish. 

Conor ran and looked over to the edge of the building and pointed down. “Look! There we are, getting arrested in the last book!”

Mike came over and looked down, too. Sure enough, there they were getting arrested from the first book. “That wasn’t our best chapter.”

“No, but I’m sure it was because there was like zero plot in the entire book.” Conor reasoned.

Suddenly….. Ernest Cline turned and looked right at them!

Mike and Conor’s jaws dropped.

“Mike, remember, that’s actually Alejandro!” Conor remembered.

“Oh, you’re right.” Mike thought for a second. “Okay, so if we’re the cat burglar terrorists, that must mean that we’re in love with Pam Valentine.”

Conor searched within himself.

“Nope, nothing. But I do have this chess-themed Valentime’s Day card in my furpocket.”

“I don’t want to know what a furpocket is.” Mike said flatly.

“It’s a little pocket in this cat burglar terrorist ensemble, see?” Conor waved the pocket flap up and down which was somehow more disturbing than if I never wrote the word ‘furpocket’ three times in the last four sentences.

“Conor I really, _really_ didn’t need to see that!” Mike shooted at Conor.

“Well anyways the Valentime’s Day card is addressed to Pam Valentine and it’s from a Clef Treble, the _actual_ cat burglar terrorist from the book. So it looks like we don’t have to go see the chess museum or ask in a deep, booming voice: WHO’S THE SHERIFF OF 64-SQUARES?” Conor said the last part with such a deep, booming voice that the building started to crumble below them.

As they lost balance, Conor flashed to the time where he totally died in the last book, and wished for that fever dream yet again. Corgis and basesball and beer.

But he would not get to see corgis or basesballs or beer.

**Chapter 11: Fooled Ya’ll It’s Shadow Moon Time Again!**

The **demon’s** eyes glowed bright yellow as it hovered above the dashboard.

“Um, Clive?” Elora said, staring at the Alf Doll whomst was now hovering over the dashboard and had glowing yellow eyes.

Clive was panic-peeing over the still-crumbling-to-rubbish building below them, but turned and looked back anyways. The Alf Doll **Demon** flew past him, hitting Clive in the face and knocking him out for the rest of the chapter. 

The **demon** appeared before Conor and Mike and immediately began spitting stones onto the building. The building began to slowly repair itself. At least, the top half of it did. The bottom half of the building still crumbled below them, but the top half was magically suspended in the air.

“Hey, thanks Alf Doll who is clearly not a **demon**!” Conor said.

_**Oh no, I’m totally a demon.**_ The demon said evilly.

“That’s unfortunate, but you still saved us!” Mike said.

_**Yes, well, I need you to help me birth my next DemonChild and it doesn’t do me any good if you’re dead.**_

“Sure thing demon, what can we do to help?” Conor asked.

_**Well,**_ The demon alf doll thought for a moment, really savoring what he could get these two boobs to do. _**To birth a DemonChild properly you must go within the walls of my mind and find her. She’s gonna be really cool and probably the best character of the entire book series, but I’ll do nothing with her because she won’t have red hair.**_

“Makes sense.” Mike said.

_**Right, so… come on in!**_

Mike and Conor dove headfirst into the Alf Doll’s mind. 

“How did we get in here, Conor?” Mike asked, though he didn’t really want to know.

“Through the furpocket of course, Mike!” Conor exclaimed, happy to find another use for the furpocket.

The inside of the Alf Doll was dark and wet. They were sure it wasn’t water, but tried not to think about it. The boys saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel, and decided to head towards it. The walk seemed like forever, but it was only several minutes. 

Finally, they came to the tunnel’s opening and there was a pool in the middle of the room. It was one of those inflatable pools. It was pretty sweet.

“There’s no way I’m getting in that thing with all this metal.” A familiar voice said through the shadows.

“Bleriana!” Conor and Mike exclaimed.

Her wicked cool cybernetic red laser eye flickered with recognition.

“Conor and Mike.” She smirked. “Of course you idiots would be the ones to get me out.”

“How on earth are you a DemonChild? Aren’t you like, fully grown?” Conor asked.

She scoffed at them. “I’m a prisoner. I was on a quest for some extra power to really juice up some new features I had installed last month, and I got entangled with a deaf assassin in Seville before being swallowed up by this weird stuffed toy.”

“Well we are here to get you out!” Mike said. 

“Great!” Bleriana said. “How do you recommend we do that? Even with all my sick upgrades, my cyborg body can’t get out of a demon’s belly.”

Conor and Mike looked around and had a think.

“How do you guys _usually_ get out of weird scrapes?”

“Random happenstance.” Mike said.

“Alejandro Intervnetion.” Conor said at the same time.

Bleriana was stunned. _Alejandro entrusted these two with saving the world?_ She thought to herself.

“And where is Alejandro now? Why hasn’t he saved his two precious underlings?” Bleriana’s eyes tightened at them.

“We hadn’t thought about that.” Conor thought about it just now. Why did it take a **demon Alf Doll** to save them, when in such a certain scrape Alejandro would be the one to do it. 

“He must have a hairball!” Mike said at last.

Bleriana threw something undefined at Mike’s head. 

“No, you idiots. He must be captured by the person you’re all trying to stop!”

It was Mike and Conor’s turn to be stunned now.

“You’re right,” Conor began, “If Alejandro was here, we wouldn’t have needed the alf doll to save us from the crumbling building. And I bet the same person who has Alejandro also has our truck!”

“YOU LOST----THE TRUCK?!?!” Bleriana shooted at them.

Conor and Mike knew that they had to get Britney out of here, but she was being kinda a pain. They looked around. It was still dark inside the demon’s belly. As far as they knew, there was no other way out except…

“Hey, I have this laxative in my pocket.” Mike said helpfully.

Bleriana smacked her head with her hand in disbelief and accidentally shot off a laser from one of her fingers.

“Where did you get those, Mike?” Conor asked.

“Clive gave them to me back in Seville. He was coming out of the changing room when we got him some pants and said there wasn’t enough room in his new ones for these.”

“That’s lucky!” Conor said, grabbing the laxative and throwing them into the magic sparkling kiddy pool. 

The demon’s belly started trembling. 

“Hold on..” Mike said.

“No, DON’T hold on!” Bleriana instructed.


	8. Chapter 12: Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Srs Busniss

Elora and Clive watched on in surprise as Conor, Mike, and a cool-looking cybernetic lady fell out of an unspeakable part of the Alf doll. They were covered in slimy stuff. Coughing and sputtering, they got up and Mike turned to strangle the Alf doll.  
I wouldn’t do that to an artifact! The doll warned.  
“Wait a second, you’re the Shadow Moon artifact?” Mike asked.  
Er, well, no. This sandwich is. But!!! I hold the sandwich. See?  
It was true. The Alf doll was holding the sandwich. But it didn’t look like a normal sandwich.  
See, it’s the best kind. I made it myself with scraps I found on the floor. You can even taste the dust bunnies. With that, he took a big bite and left half a fly in the sandwich. It’s wings sort of flapped while you could hear it scream out in little fly agony.  
Conor and Mike were disgusted, but more disgusted with whatever slime that apparently coated the inside of the demon’s intestines. Bleriana zapped the sandwich out of the demon’s hand. “Quick, catch it!” She shouted at them.  
Conor, still waving slime off his face, happened to have his palm raised and caught the sandwich in his open hand.  
“Adequate job!” Bleriana said.  
Conor shoved what was left of the sandwich in a static bag and put it in his little knapsack of artifacts which he totally has had the whole time.  
Mike strangled the life out of the Alf doll and threw it over the edge of the building and onto the rubbish pile that was formerly the 64-Squares building. That’s the end of that guy! Mike thought confidently to himself.

Clive let down a rope so the boys and Bleriana could climb up into the Iced Cream truck.  
“Mom!” Elora exclaimed.  
Bleriana was taken aback. Who was this person? Why was she wearing a Distiller’s t-shirt and flip flops? Didn’t she know better than to dress like a fuking posr?  
“I’m sorry little girl, my program doesn’t recognize you.” Bleriana said icily.  
Elora was upset by this. “What do you mean? You’re my mom! You used to work at a diner. We lived happily in the little town where I would draw on the back of the menus until one day you were captured by men who said they knew my dad. You really don’t remember?”  
Bleriana thought for a moment. She searched her archives. There, beneath a fragmented file, was a .bmp image. Bleriana opened it with her mind. It was a crude child’s drawing of a little girl and a house and a sun and a taller person with a red necklace and glowing eyes.  
A single tear streaked down Bleriana’s face. “E..lora..” She muttered.  
Elora and Bleriana hugged and were reunited for the first time in an assortment of years.

Mike took control of driving the ice cream truck while the mother and daughter duo got reacquainted. Conor was sitting up front and Clive was awkwardly in the back listening to Elora explain how she came to own an ice cream truck in the Bob Honey-verse. Apparently, Elora got her Mother’s space-bending abilities but it only works like twice a year. So Elora used her second space-bend ability on the truck so the truck can do it too. There.  
“Where to next, Conor?” Mike asked.  
Conor was emotional. This was just like old times when they had their Trucking Thru Time truck. He gazed wistfully out the window, reminiscing.   
“Conor?” Mike looked over as Conor hadn’t responded to him yet.  
Conor jumped a little. “Oh, sorry Mike! Was thinking of simpler times. Why don’t we check on The Mister?”  
Mike smiled knowingly. He knew that Conor wanted to visit his dopple and tripplegangers that were all convened in The Mister for some reason.


	9. Chapter 13: The Curse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "alternative title: o h yeah, the plot"

When they arrived at Castle Castowka, the boys were greeted by Disembaudio and Henrietta.   
“Hey guys what’s shakin’?” Disembaudio said, looking under their shins at the unexpected guests whomst came with them.  
Mike and Conor exchanged a knowing look. “These are our travelling companions - Clive, Elora, and Bleriana.”  
“Well you’re all staying here and having fun with us!” Disembaudio popped his toast and showed them into the castle.  
“I should ask beforehand, can Clive have a room near the bathroom?” Mike asked.  
“Certainly!” Henrietta chimed in.

After they were all settled in and Clive changed pants yet again, they sat on the Castowka Couches and began to chat about their travels.  
“That sure was a story, partners!” Disembaudio said humorously after a few hours of dildo-tracking tales. Disembaudio’s eyes tightened. “But it is odd that your Truck was stolen with no clues on where to find it or whomst absconded with it.”  
Just at that moment Elora crunched on a walnut.  
“Yeah, it’s really weird.” Conor said. “We don’t even know where to begin looking for it. We were hoping maybe you or Lonor could give us some help.”  
“After all,” Mike said, “Three Conors are better than one!” Mike chuckled at his own joke.  
“Where is Lonor, by the way?” Conor asked.   
It was true. Lonor hadn’t greeted them as was custom. He was nowhere to be found.  
Disembaudio shifted uneasily in his chair. “Er, well, you see--” he began in his robot-y voice. “Lonor’s not exactly here.”  
Conor was shocked. “Didn’t he know we were coming?”  
Henrietta sighed. “We never know when you’re coming to visit. You just show up in one magical vehicle or another.”  
“That is true.” Mike said. Clive started tapping his feet on the floor. “Do you need to go to the bathroom Clive?”  
Clive shook his head but was sweating profusely.  
“Do you mean yes?” Mike asked firmly.  
Clive shook his head again. His panda shirt was soaked.   
Henrietta looked over at Clive with a worried expression. “Is he alright?”  
Suddenly…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………………. A bunch of little toasters propelled into the room!!!!!!  
“Kids! Kids settle down!” Disembaudio shooted. The “kids” were little toasters that had vacuum hoses attached to them that let them fly around the room somehow and were doing just that while causing mayhem and chaos. Disembaudio told them to settle down with a proud look on his face.  
“Looks like someone’s been busy!” Bleriana scoffed.  
“At least neither of us are Ernest Cline, missy!” Henrietta threw back.  
Bleriana was offended. “I... didn’t know who he was! I was so young back then. I didn’t know any better.” She stormed out of the room, Henrietta followed shortly after with the kids to torment Bleriana some more before bed.  
“I should take Clive to the bathroom, too.” Mike said, leaving the room with a nervous Clive.  
“Now that it’s just the two of us,” Disembaudio began, “There’s something grave I must tell you about Lonor.”  
It being just the two Castowka family members in the room, it seemed appropriate that now is the time for a deep family secret.  
“You see, Conor, we have a family curse.”  
“Does it involve---”  
“No it doesn’t involve Corgis.”  
“The family curse,” Disembaudio continued, with reverb on the words ‘family curse’, “is that at some point in our lives the Castowkas develop an obsession with kites.”  
“Kites? Like the kind you fly?”  
“What other kinds of kites are there you...nevermind. Yes, kites. It will strike me too, hopefully after I see my children raised. It already struck Lonor. I’ve made arrangements for him to live out his days in a secluded tower called Doom Tower where he can fly kites and talk to them in relative peace.”  
This was good information to know. “That’s good to know, this information.” Conor said finally after a few minutes of contemplation.   
“But there’s something more pressing at hand.” Disembaudio stirred his prune stew with his electrical cord thoughtfully. “You must needs find your Truck. Perhaps Alejandro knows where it might be?”  
Conor thought for exactly three and a half minutes. “You know, I haven’t spoken to Alejandro in a while.”   
Disembaudio nodded somehow. “You should visit Lonor. Get a glimpse of your potential future, and see if he can help you send a message to Alejandro.”


	10. Chapter 14: The White Worm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah it's that LoTWW / TTT / Twilight / 372Pages /The Mister mashup ya'll have always wanted!

Traveling to the Lair of the White Worm was actually super easy since Lonor’s Doom Tower was on the same property as the Castowka Castle. They happened to see Lonor himself sitting outside drinking some tea.  
Conor waved at Lonor when they got there.  
“Hey Mike and Conor how do you like my Doom Tower?” Lonor asked them.  
“It’s really cool!” Conor was excited. If this was his future - living it out as a crazy person in a tower with a bunch of kites. It could be worse! Curse who?!  
Everyone sat around the tea table and stared at each other.   
Lonor sipped his tea and smiled at everyone. “Yes, now you can all meet the white worm!”  
Before they could look behind them, Edward CULLEN!!!!!! Came out and bit everyone turning them into vampires.  
“WHAT THE FUK ARE YOU MOTHERFUKERS DOING!!!!??” Elora shouted.   
“Suddenly I have a craving for cocopuffs but with blood instead of milk.” Conor said.  
“Shut up, you PREP!” Mike said.  
Bleriana and Clive stared at each other in a field of wildflowers for seven movies.   
Lonor laughed maniacally. “Now you all must deal with being insufferable vampires. I wonder if any of you will have special avatar-like abilities?”  
Conor and Mike had a conversation telepathically:  
Jeez can you believe this guy? Conor thought.  
I know. Sic’ing Edward Cullen of all vampires on us. You know he doesn’t actually like to change people right? Mike thought back.  
Right? Like the entirety of the Twilight movies he was like not changing Bella’s diaper or something. Anyways. I can see two minutes into the future and we’re all suddenly OK with this so let’s just ride it out.  
Lonor peered at them intently. “Are you two having a telepathic conversation?”  
“Yes we did, but we’ve always been able to do that.” Mike explained.  
“Now we can do it while wearing hats!” Conor said, putting a minor-league baseball team hat on his head.  
Lonor put his head in his hands. Another failed experiment. He thought to himself.   
Hey now, big guy. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Lonor heard another voice in his head. It was Conor!!!!  
But, I have the brain-kite-worms. All I wished to do was fly kites all the time. Maybe send some messages up the kite strings. You know, live my life doing that. But then this Edward kid came along and was like “Hey I’m in that part of New Moon where I dumped my GF and ran off somewhere and I need a hobby.” So I taught him how to fly kites and he hated it so much he wanted to start killing people again. I convinced him to just turn you people into vampires when we saw you pull up in your iced cream truck and he agreed. Lonor info-dumped.  
Where is he now? Conor asked.  
Lonor sighed out loud. I have no idea!  
Suddenly, Conor stood up. “I know exactly where to go.”  
Conor and Mike ran to see Bleriana and Clive in their field of wildflowers. Neither of them were there, but Conor found Bleriana’s red necklace. He put the necklace into his artifact pouch.   
“So, you’ve come!” Edward said happily. “I missed laying in the field with my GF who I unceremoniously dumped for no good reason other than to make this other guy look really good for her for like half a book.”  
“We didn’t bring our trapper-keepers!” Mike yelled at him angrily. How dare Rifftrax keep him watching all the twilights, then Conor makes him read Midnight Sun, and now. NOW!!! A supposed FAN!!! Puts twilight here in front of him in her own fanfic!!! Will he never be able to escape Edward Cullen?!  
Incensed, Mike launched at Edward whomst swatted him into a tree knocking him out for the remainder of the fight.  
Edward smirked his crooked smile. “None of you ended up having cool powers did you?” He said, reading Conor’s mind.  
Conor closed his eyes solemnly and had a think. What was he going to do? He wasn’t a special vampire. But suddenly, a familiar song came to him.  
Sparkly Vampires!  
Around the field, the forest had eyes. The eyes of…. Werecorgi. And Conor knew who they actually were. He could hear with his super-vampire hearing the little lone half-toaster half-vacuum cleaner sobbing in the distance before shifting into a full fledge werecorgi.   
“You forgot one thing when you came to Castle Castowka, Edward.” Conor said like a smug anime character. “WE LOVE CORGIS!!!!” He mentally told the werecorgis to attack Edward and bind him. And they all leapt out of the forest at once to do so. They chomped off a limb or two in the process, but hey, they were kids. They didn’t know any better yet.

Tied to the makeshift torture pole, Edward was really upset about it. He didn’t know what was coming next because he only listened to Debussy and read Jane Austen. He never would have thought about touching Trucking Through Time.   
The corgwolves stood guard, growling and popping toast -- ever alert.  
“You’ll never get away with this!” Edward yelled. “My family will come for me!”  
“How?” Conor asked. “According to New Moon,” He explained reading aloud, “You left  
your entire family in the dark so you can pursue your own stuff like becoming a better tracker than  
James even though James is dead and you probably didn’t need to do that.”  
Edward hung his head. “It’s true. I just couldn’t stand to be around that bland emo chick anymore.”  
Conor nodded with approval. “I get it. We still need your artifact though.”  
Edward nodded solemnly, thinking he would just be beheaded. Well, he was going to be beheaded, just not that one.   
Conor raised the knife above his head and then realized that this was pretty gross, and stopped. And told Elora to do it.  
Elora screeched, “YOU FUKING POSR!!!! VAMPIRES AREN’T MEANT TO SPARKLE!!!!” and chopped his white worm off with ease.  
Mike, recovering from the tree-ing, looked up and was able to see through blurred vision what was happening to Edward. “Gr..andpa…..yes….” and passed back out.

Several days passed, and Doom Tower and Castle Castowka were back to relative normalcy. Sure, their kids were werecorgis, but that meant they were part corgi, and Disembaudio felt a smile stretch across his face every time he thought about that. Of course, he hoped none of them grew up to adulthood and then imprinted on a baby which is what actually happens in twilight.   
“Do you really think this will work? That we can contact Alejandro this way?” Mike, fully recovered from his concussion, asked Lonor.  
“If it reaches high enough.” Lonor answered, tying a little note to the string to send up.   
The boys stood waiting for the kite to have a little note sent down or a portal opening up, or whatever Alejandro could do with that. But nothing happened. And there was only one reason why Alejandro the space kitten cat wouldn’t respond to them (because he always wanted pets and would come to get the pets) --- he was captured!


	11. Chapter 15: Welcome to the Moon Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally remember there's a plot. Let's go save Alejandro!

“If Alejandro is captured, the whole universe is doomed.” Conor said. “We have to find him!”

Conor and Mike climbed into the ice cream truck with a new sense of purpose. The little cosmic space kitten Alejandro needed them now more than ever. 

“Let’s head to Armada and see if any of their high tech Classic(™) instruments can help us pinpoint his location.” Mike said to Elora as she plugged in coordinates to Moon Base Alpha.

Moon Base Alpha looked remarkably fixed from the last time they were there in the first book. Nothing had exploded yet, but no one was there still. They passed the hallways upon hallways filled with snacks and gamer fuel such as mountain dew, doritos, and an unspeakable amount of clear plastic bottles.

Upon entering the bridge, Mike and Conor looked at the console.

“It would probably help if we knew how any of this worked.” Conor said.

“Oh yeah, that would have been a good idea. And we don’t have time to read the manual.” Mike agreed.

“Read the Fucking Manual!” Elora shouted, horking down some doritos.

The cringe filled the room.

Just then, Conor spotted a piece of square adhesive paper stuck to the console. “Hey, Mike. This says ‘If you’re reading this, you must do the Clinean thing - use the force!’. What do you suppose that means?”

Mike looked around and saw, illuminated in the corner, a set of musical instruments. 

“Conor do you remember in Ready Player One for the last key Wade had to play my favorite band, Rush?” Mike looked at Conor excitedly.

Mike could see the lightbulb go off in Conor’s head. They rushed to the instruments - Conor on a Casio keyboard and Mike on a normal instrument like a guitar.

Conor began playing the best and most modern classical song: Welcome to the Black Parade. Elora jumped in on vocals, having heard the greatest MCR cover band: My Substance Friendship in concert. 

During the song, they could see the control panels on the computers moving and whirring and blinking. 

_It’s working!_ Conor thought.

_Keep going!_ Mike thought back.

Finally, at the end of the song, everything turned black and white except for the console which glowed red with the pinpoint location of exactly where Alejandro was. 

“Let’s copy these coordinates and head out into a ship to find him!” Mike said, jotting down the coordinates on a new piece of square adhesive paper.

Heading into the space garage (otherwise known as a hangar), Mike and Conor and Elora were shocked to see that there weren’t any space ships left!!!

“Oh that’s right,” Conor said as he remembered, “All the other ships blew up in Armada and then even more the last time we were here.”

“Yeah didn’t you die?” Mike asked.

“I did!” 

Just then, Elora spotted a giant sheet covering something slightly smaller than the sheet. She pulled it off, and there it was: The Baby HooMoos. 

“It’s HooMoos2!” Conor shooted excitedly.

“No, Conor -- it’s a prototype! Look it’s in the shape of the babyrig.” 

“DIBS!” Elora said, jumping into the cockpit.

Conor and Mike scuffed the ground with their feet all put out, but dibs were dibs.

They were sure there was another spaceship somewhere for them to use. The space garage was super big, after all. After what seemed like minutes, Conor and Mike happened upon……………………………………………………………

THE TRUCK!

“It’s Chad and Dale’s truck! What’s it doing out here?” Mike questioned.

“You idiots, with your new vampire powers you didn’t even think to fly around and find the truck? It was parked a block away from where you left it.” Bleriana said.

“Oh, that’s right, I couldn’t find parking on the street so I had to go like a block over.” Conor admitted.

“Bleriana! Where have you been?” Mike said.

“Clive and I found a cure for our vampirism after starring in 7 awful movies that were riffed by you guys a few years ago. We used our vampirism powers to find the Trucking Thru Time truck and brought it up here. Since you hadn’t come to Armada yet in this book, we figured you’d come here eventually. Sorry about all the doritos, they are Clive’s favorite snack.”

“Great, then let’s go!” Conor said, trying to open the Trucking Thru Time truck’s door but failing miserably.

“You can’t, it’s broken.” Clive said, peeping from behind the truck.

“Nothing we’ve tried to fix it works. Even fixing the parts that are broken. They just unbreak!” Bleriana said. Conor and Mike could see a few laser holes from where she must have gotten super frustrated at the truck and struck it with her cool laser eye.

Conor thought to himself. _What if solving this is like solving the puzzle in the bridge to get the computers working?_

 _Are you saying what I think you’re saying?_ Mike thought back at Conor. 

Conor nodded solemnly.

“Time for an 80’s fixin’ the truck montage!” Conor and Mike said together.

Mike, Conor, Bleriana, and Clive all began working on the truck while ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ began playing in the background. Bleriana and Mike changed into the _same outfit(!!!)_ complete with a silly wide-brimmed hat before laughing and changing into like normal mechanic jumpers. Clive fell down and shrugged, mugging at a camera that didn’t exist. They all had smudges of oil smeared on their faces and coveralls haphazardly and out of nowhere since they didn’t have to change the oil. Conor ordered pizza and threw a piece at Mike, whomst caught it but it turned into a wrench when he caught it like in Twilight: New Moon. Bleriana looked at Mike with an “Oh, you!” expression while Clive peed himself quietly in the corner.

After the montage, the truck was running like new. Everyone piled into the truck (which was still filled with alf dolls by the way) and set off to the coordinates. 


	12. Chapter 16: A List and a Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay so there's *two* lists! 
> 
> Also.... the bad guy(s?!?!) are revealed!!!!

Bleriana shuffled through the bag Conor was keeping the artifacts in. So far, they had: 

**Ready Player One:** Bottled Nerd Rage

 **Armada:** Prototype of H00M00s that Elora was currently driving.

 **Eye of Argon:** The literal Eye of Argon

 **TekWar:** Winger’s Nuts

 **64 Squares:** Clef Treble’s Valentimes card

 **Bob Honey:** Dildo

**The Mister:**

**Trucking Through Time:** the Trucking Through Time Truck

**Lair of the White Worm:**

**Shadow Moon:** Floor Sandwich

**Moon People:**

**Digital Fortress:**

**My Immortal:** Elora’s Fanfic

 **Midnight Sun:** Edward’s White Worm

“We’re missing a few artifacts fellas.” Bleriana noted.

A whirr like from a vacuum cleaner and a few excited pops like from a toaster were heard from somewhere in the truck. Suddenly….. A werecorgi popped out! But he wasn’t a werecorgi right now, he was just a regular half-toaster half-vacuum cleaner child.

“Oh, and Lonor entrusted to me our family’s Kilt Grenade.” Conor said, casually tossing the grenade into the bag full of precious(?) artifacts. 

“I wonder if this secret decoder ring will be helpful at all?” Clive asked Bleriana, not knowing what he had.

“You nincompoop!” Bleriana shooted at him. “That’s the ring from Digital Fortress! The stupid red herring or whatever.”

Bleriana made another list: 

**Ready Player One:** Bottled Nerd Rage

 **Armada:** Prototype of H00M00s that Elora was currently driving.

 **Eye of Argon:** The literal Eye of Argon

 **TekWar:** Winger’s Nuts

 **64 Squares:** Clef Treble’s Valentimes card

 **Bob Honey:** Dildo

 **The Mister:** Werecorgi

 **Trucking Through Time:** the Trucking Through Time Truck

 **Lair of the White Worm:** Kilt Grenade

 **Shadow Moon:** Floor Sandwich

**Moon People:**

**Digital Fortress:** Clive’s Ring

 **My Immortal:** Elora’s Fanfic

 **Midnight Sun:** Edward’s White Worm

“We’re still missing an artifact from Moon People. Did you guys bother going to that book this time?” Bleriana complained.

“We did for like a second but we just ate at Cheral’s diner.” Conor said.

“Yeah, we totally forgot we were on a mission to collect artifacts.” Mike explained.

Bleriana rolled her eyes at them. 

“Well, I hope the artifacts we have now will be enough, because they’ll have to be!” Bleriana was really upset. 

The computer in the Truck started beeping. “We must be getting close! Conor said. The computer is beeping.”

The radio, which had been playing classic(™) music stopped suddenly, and all the clocks in the truck stopped as well. “So much for my collection of alarm clocks!” Mike said.

And then began the ThunderSnow.

“Snow? In space?” Bleriana was shocked. Mike and Conor knew what was happening. They were trucking _through time!_

The snow seemed to go on forever, but finally the Truck landed itself and the snow subsided. They looked around them and found themselves in front of the house from Family Ties.

_This can only mean one thing!_ Mike thought.

_Impossible!_ Conor thought in response. _He’s dead!_

 _Who are you guys talkin’ about?_ Elora said to them from the Baby H00M00s.

_**Ernest Cline**_ They both thought together at everyone.

They all got out of their trucks and went into the house. The living room from Family Ties of course had a pair of samurai swords on the wall. It was now also outfitted with four throney chairs on pedestals and a silver glittering cage that held a small adorable black kitten.

“Alejandro!” Mike and Conor exclaimed.

Alejandro squonked at them from his cage. “Mike and Conor! I cannot leave this cage and they have tuna in the other room! Will you help me? My powers do not work from inside this cage.”

Conor went over to the cage but was stopped by a large stone wall. They were suddenly surrounded by this wall like a magical stone cage.

“So, Conor and Mike,” an evil voice began.

“-- _AND OTHERS!_ ” another evil voice finished. 

“Yes, as I was saying,” the first evil voice continued. “You’ve finally found us. But you’re too late and you don’t have all the artifacts to stop us from our awesome plan!”

“Us?” Mike asked.

“What is your plan?” Conor asked, too.

“Oh, well can you see us? Through the stone cage we put around you?”

Bleriana shot a few holes in the stone cage with her laser eye. It wasn’t powerful enough to break through completely but they could see enough. There, plot hole fixed.

“Yes we can see you now. You’re all in black cloaks though.” Mike observed.

“We can totally hear you better, too!” Conor said.

“Damn it, Claremont I told you the stone prison thing was stupid!” one of the voices shooted at Chris Claremont.

_Everyone, I have a plan of how to get out of this cage._ Clive thought.

_Good, it’s getting really stinky in here on account of all the urine, Clive._ Bleriana thought to Clive with annoyance.

_Let’s use our vampire powers to merge with the stone wall and break free!_ Clive continued as he peed.

Together, the five of them escaped the stone prison by merging with the stone. Clive forgot to ask permission from the stone at first but the floor sandwich vouched for him.

Upon leaving the other side of the stone, they found themselves still in the Family Ties living room.

The cloaked figures were standing in front of the coffee table and protecting it from something. Alejandro was squonking something unintelligible at them. One cloaked figure, who was floating, took down his hood and revealed himself to be…… THE GHOST OF ERNEST CLINE!!!!!!

“Heh heh, guys I think it’s time for the **bad guy monologue**!” Cline felt a grin creep across his face.

“Okay, but can someone who’s not a poot cloud do it for us?” Sean Penn complained. They knew it was him because he was the only cloaked figure in a heated pool and also a jar of asspiss. 

“I can do it. After all, _my_ books are read in airports and beach houses all across the world. Especially in Seville.” Dan Brown bragged.

“Fine, just _someone_ do it already!” Elora whined.

Dan Brown cleared his gross throat. “We are the Cabal of Misunderstood Authors. The four of us were destroyed mercilessly by your terrible review and admittedly hilarious riffing on our best books. We decided to form CoMA when Claremont found this awesome magical artifact that lets us suck ‘good’ words from authors from around the world. It siphons them into this blank tome that writes the world’s best book ever using the collection of words we’ve gathered.”

“Okay, but why did you steal and trap Alejandro?” Conor asked.

“Because we knew he sent you off to collect the ingredients for a counter-spell that will ruin our plans. And we knew if we took him and captured him then you would eventually come here with all of the items so we can destroy you all at once!” Ernest Cline let out a long, evil “Muahhaha” laugh that even Dan Brown rolled his eyes at.


	13. Chapter 17: Showdown, or It Would Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a showdown at the CoMA corral!

_Conor?_ Mike thought to Conor. _Let’s use our vampire powers that we still have somehow to lead them on a chase all around the world---_

 _\---until they get tired and have to stop somewhere to rest!_ Conor finished Mike’s thoughts. They were such a good team!

Bleriana caught wind of these thoughts. “That’s stupid.” She hissed. “All of them aren’t going to follow just the two of you. Even if you _did_ have all the artifacts.” 

“She’s right.” Dan Brown said. “I should know, I write the best thriller-adjacent novels.” 

Clive shuddered and blinked his eyes thirty times a second. He clutched his locket that I forgot to write that he’s had this whole time. Bleriana noticed this. “What’s that?”

Clive smiled a crooked smile. “It’s my favorite painting in the entire world. I had the artist make a miniature one to fit in this locket so I will have it always.”

Bleriana grabbed the locket and looked at it. It was her turn to shudder. It was just so beautiful. Her reaction made Clive’s face flush so red he should probably get medical attention. It was a portrait of a white dog on a blue background.

_DOGFACE PAINTING!_ Mike gasped mentally.

The Dogface painting started to glow. It was one of Clive’s new vampire powers. He could make things glow brighter than a spotlight surrounded by campfires.

“Go, boys. Elora can help you from here. I’ll hold the ones who don’t follow you off.” Bleriana readied her laser eye for some bad-author butt kicking.

Mike and Conor goaded as many of the CoMA authors as possible. Dan Brown, ever-ready for a chase darted after them. Cline’s poot cloud stayed behind with Sean Penn (as a jar of ass piss still). Claremont thought there might not be any magic being used so he’d have an upper hand, and ran along with Dan Brown.

Brown and Claremont had amazing vampiric super speed somehow. “It’s how we run from bad reviews.” They reasoned with the author in her head.

Racing outside in the snow proved difficult for Mike and Conor and soon they were at a crossroads. Mike could smell Claremont’s 80’s cheese from the north, and Conor thought he picked up the faint smell of Seville Oranges wafting from the south. They stood on top of a mountain where a werewolf and a vampire would have a very fun time in a tent in maybe the third movie or so.

Conor texted Elora. _N?_

Elora texted back quickly. Also an “ _n”._

Conor and Mike headed south, which was good since Ernest Cline had been filming Ready Player 2: The Armadaverse days earlier which is why it vaguely smelled of the 80’s. 

Soon after they headed south, a lake appeared. “Where the hell are we that there’s a Family Ties replica house and also a large mountain and a lake?” Mike asked.

“Forks, _OREGON_.” Conor said through his teeth. 

Conor texted Elora again. “Jump?”

Elora texted back. “Y”.

“Does she mean “why” or does she mean “yes”?” Conor grumbled to his inner monster. He thought about it for what seemed like several minutes before ultimately deciding that she probably meant “yes” so they jumped in the lake together.

While they were drying off and running the bad authors down, Elora texted them again: “Y did u guyz jump in da lake?”

Mike cursed the twelve. Of course she meant “why”, she wrote some bad fanfic in like chapter seven. Mike let out a Norman groan that served as his vampiric growl.

Soon they came upon a small town. The police chief, whomst they saw dining at the local diner, had a glorious mustache that could be bested by like, the universe’s greatest mustache champion if such a thing existed. Mike and Conor immediately warmed up to him. 

“Have you seen two terrible writers run through here?” Mike asked the mustachio’d chief of police.

“Why yes, I seem to recall him heading up to the old deserted-yet-well-maintained private airfield our town has for some reason.

“Wow that’s super specific and really helpful. Thanks!” Conor said, and they ran with super speed off to the airfield.

They just missed them. Standing in the very well maintained yet somehow completely unused private hangar, Conor could smell fuel and cheetos. “They were here.” Conor reasoned.

“But where could they have gone?” Mike asked.

The boys looked up at the sky where they saw a cool Eat At Joe’s banner waving behind a small two-seater prop plane. 

“EEEhheheheheh!” Conor and Mike heard from the plane. It was Claremont and!!! Dan Brown! They each put on their own evil-guy mustaches and cackled into the spring breeze as they flew off like cartoon villains after a grand chase.

Conor called Elora. “Where are they heading now?” Conor asked.

Elora thought. Conor tried very hard and was finally able to see Elora’s thoughts in her head. This is how it played out:

Chris Claremont and Dan Brown heading to a room that looked like the Family Ties living room. Elora tried to look around the room in her head here and _yes_ there were samurai swords hanging on the wall. 

“So they’re just going back to where we started?” Conor asked, exasperated.

“Looks that way!” Said Elora. “Hey, there they are now! You’re missing it, guys!”


	14. Chapter 18: An Occasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh NO! Alejandro's DEAD!?!!?

Mike and Conor burst into the room driving the Trucking Through Time Truck. It knocked the cage off of Alejandro, but Alejandro immediately zoomied into the other room to get the tuna. “The tuna.” he said. “It is so good. Like me, Alejandro.”

Aside from the truck thoroughly broken, it looked like none of the Good Guys had been harmed.

“It was all Bleriana.” Elora said, happy for her mom. “She was so cool! She beat all of them up and tied them up like they were scooby doo villains.

“Even Ernest Cline?” Conor asked.

“Yeah.” Elora said. “This trenchcoated angel came to visit us during the fight and handed us some iron chains to wrap around the ghost of Ernest Cline.”

“Cool where is he now?” Mike asked.

“Oh he went back to earth to be with his boyfriend.” 

“Great!” Conor said. “Let’s do this spell and un-do all the bad stuff that these dumb guys have done.”

Clive, Elora, Bleriana, Mike, and Conor all stood around the blank tome that was siphoning all the writing from good authors. They realized immediately they had no idea how to perform such a counter-spell.

Luckily, Alejandro had just finished his can of tuna and was sauntering back into the room licking his lips. “The tuna, it was so good. I ate it all.”

“That’s awesome Alejandro, but we’ve failed you.” Conor told Alejandro, scuffing the ground with his foot in shame. 

Alejandro hopped up onto the coffee table where the book was. “Lay out all of the artifacts here around the book.” He floofed his tail patiently while Mike and Conor did as he asked. 

After they set up all the artifacts, Mike and Conor looked disappointed. The werecorgi barked and wagged his power cord.

“See? We’re missing the artifact from Moon People. NASA didn’t launch their Halloween space mission like they did in the book, so we couldn’t grab it.”

“And Cheral’s Diner and Red Lobster were both closed because of COVID.” 

Alejandro let out a humorous squonk. “You are so silly. The artifact is _me_ , Alejandro.”

“Wha-WHAAAAA?” Said Mike. Everyone looked shocked. Bleriana fainted.

“My race, we are known as Galumpas. We are all-knowing all-powerful cosmic beings. I am the cutest of course.” Alejandro placed his paw on the page and the book and artifacts started to glow. Clive shrugged. It was not his weird vampiric powers. It was Alejandro’s awesome Galumpa powers.

Everyone let out a “wow” sound. 

The book stopped siphoning words. It started spitting them back out and the wind carried them back to the good authors of the universe. After all the words were back in place, the book and all the artifacts caught fire and burnt to a crisp. 

Mike and Conor were so upset that Alejandro sacrificed himself for the book and all writers everywhere. Everyone started crying. 

Suddenly, from the ashes of the artifacts Alejandro came back to life. He did one slow blink at everyone and the baby werecorgi pooped back into existence and let out a cute bark. “I told you all, I am an all-powerful kitten cat.”

Alejandro floofed his tail happily again as Conor gave him good-boy pets.

“Hey, what about us?” Cline said, visibly upset about the chains and also not getting into Supernatural Fanfic earlier so he would know who the Angel was cuz he looked hella dope.

Alejandro looked over at them and licked his lips. This magic created a giant can of tuna around the awful authors and when he was done licking his lips it closed and sealed over them. 

“Now they will never hurt anyone again.” Mike felt good about this statement.

Alejandro tilted his cute furry head to the side. “Only if they don’t have a can opener.” 

And everyone laughed.


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragons.

With the bad guys trapped in a can of tuna, and all the good writing back where it belongs (in the hearts and minds of actual writers and not over-hyped nonsense whores), it was time for the group to part ways.

Bleriana and Elora decided to hang out together more since they were separated by timey-wimey stuff and also they were from different franchises. Bleriana was very impressed at Elora’s ice cream truck, and they fucked off together in that just like Arya did in Doctor Who.

Clive went back to IT support data entry.

Mike and Conor finally were able to go home. 

Alejandro winked at Mike and Conor and while they puzzled over a wink and not a slow blink, it was soon apparent to them that he sent them _both_ to Mike’s house.

“Hey guys!” Lauren and Bridget said. They were both riding their own cool looking dragons. The dragons sat around piles of treasure and video games. They had awesome be-jeweled crowns and sweet looking powerful swords hung from their belts.

“What the heck is this!?!” Mike asked like ‘a talking cat!?!’

“Oh, after Alejandro sent you boys off to do some writing or whatever, he asked us to help him with some sick lord-of-the-rings style fantasy stuff and we went on a cool adventure.” Lauren explained. Bridget began casting a spell she learned to summon ice cream.

“Well, we got to defeat Edward Cullen and were turned into vampires!” Conor said, trying to sound cooler than the dragons who were currently ‘laughing’ by blowing fire out of their snouts.

“Are you guys still vampires?” Bridget asked nonchalant-ly, licking her iced cream cone.

“Let’s check.” Conor said out loud, and then, struggling, thinking -- _Hey Mike, it sucks we don’t have sweet dragons to chill with._

“Ya it sure does.” Lauren said out loud. Conor and Mike looked at her, puzzled. “Oh, I’m not a vampire. On one of our epic quests, I was asked what the worst song in the world was, and I answered correctly and the Mage-zard gave me the special power to read minds.”

Conor audibly sighed. “What was the song?”

“Welcome to The Black Parade.” Lauren said, cackling. 

Conor almost disintegrated with shame.

Bridget patted her dragon. “Don’t disintegrate our husbands, Wrathian.” She said to the dragon. And then, to the boys: “Wrathian can sense shame and then disintegrate people who feel shame.”

“Yeah,” added Lauren, “It was fun laughing at a group of orcs while we imagined them in their underwear! Easiest battle ever won!”

“Okay, well then what’s your dragon’s name?” Conor asked Lauren.

“Emet-Selch.” Lauren said firmly as if everyone reading this should know exactly why the dragon was named as such.

Mike knew exactly what she meant by that and nodded with fervent approval.

“Sounds like we both had equally awesome and rewarding adventures.” Mike said.

“No, we didn’t.” Bridget said smugly.


End file.
